An archive of articles and listserve postings of interest, mostly posted without commentary, linked to commentary at the Education Notes Online blog. Note that I do not endorse the points of views of all articles, but post them for reference purposes.

Thursday, August 08, 2013

Lee Sustar, Socialist Worker: Building fighting teachers unions

As rank-and-file teachers around the U.S. seek to
revitalize their unions, Lee Sustar looks at the high stakes in the struggles
ahead.

August 8, 2013

THE SCHOOL year is set to begin with teachers
looking to the example of last year's successful Chicago Teachers Union (CTU)
strike as their union locals face their toughest struggles in 50 years.

It's difficult to overstate the challenges facing
public school teachers--and the children, parents and communities they
serve--as the next wave of corporate-driven "education reform" takes
shape.

Privatization is rampant, with chunks of entire
school systems like New Orleans and Detroit being turned over to charter
operators--or with plans to turn them over. Half of the schools in Kansas City,
Mo., have already been closed. In Los Angeles, charter schools have siphoned
some 10 percent of student enrollment away from traditional public schools. In
Philadelphia, budget cuts are being used to threaten the layoff of thousands of
teachers unless their union agrees to staggering contract concessions [1].

What's more, new legislation in states across the
U.S. mandate harsh evaluation schemes, attacks on teacher tenure and the
proliferation of charters, thanks to the Obama administration's federal Race to
the Top grant program that requires such changes.

The CTU strike was far and away the biggest and
most successful example of teacher resistance to this onslaught. At a time when
the CTU's national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), is in
full retreat, the Chicago teachers showed that an active, determined
rank-and-file, in close alliance with parents and community allies, could take
on the politically powerful Mayor Rahm Emanuel--and win.

The contract did include some
concessions--including reduced compensation for laid-off teachers and an
intrusive "wellness" health care program in exchange for a freeze in
employee-paid health insurance costs. But Emanuel completely failed to achieve
his main goals [2] of establishing higher merit pay, harsher teacher evaluation
schemes and fast-track firings of teachers rated as weak. The CTU also won
contract language to help strengthen the union at school sites.

The struggle in Chicago continues, of course [3].
Some 49 elementary schools are set to close while budget cuts are costing
teacher jobs and setting the stage for a massive increase in class sizes. But
an energized CTU continues to fight back alongside its allies--a direct result
of a strike that hinged on a continuous mass mobilization and democratic
decision-making.

The CTU contract could--and should--have become a
model for other locals of the AFT and the much larger National Education
Association (NEA). In fact, teacher union locals such as the Berkeley
Federation of Teachers have hosted CTU speakers to help gear up for contract
campaigns.

But AFT President Randi Weingarten, by contrast,
has continued her strategy [4] of surrendering key elements of teacher unionism
like tenure and opposition to merit pay in order to preserve a one-sided
"partnership" with school districts and politicians. Weingarten
played a direct role in finalizing such a deal in Cleveland [5], which was also
tied to state legislation that will funnel tax money to charter schools.

Weingarten was personally involved in the
negotiation of the Newark Teachers Union (NTU) contract that was negotiated in
the wake of the CTU strike. The AFT president greeted the approval of the deal
[6] in a television appearance with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the
Republican who built a national profile with his attacks on his state's
teachers’ unions.

The Newark contract, underwritten with $100
million from Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, ties pay raises to
performance and offers as much as $12,000 in merit pay to "high
performing" teachers in hard-to-staff schools and subject areas. It also
clears the way for the dismissal of low-performing teachers based on the
state's new law on teacher evaluations [7]. The New York Times editorial board
was quick to contrast Newark teachers with their Chicago counterparts [8],
having earlier denounced the strike as "Chicago teachers' folly." [9]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AFTER EXPERIENCING their new contract, however,
Newark teachers opted for the Chicago model instead. Reformers in the NEW
caucus nearly toppled the incumbent president of the NTU, and won a majority of
the union's executive board [10].

The reformers' success in Newark came just a few
weeks after their counterparts in New York had an unexpectedly strong showing
[11] in elections in the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the largest and
dominant local of the AFT. The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE)
managed to win 40 percent of the votes of high school teachers, albeit in a
record low turnout. Inspired by the Chicago experience, MORE was created by a
merger of several other currents in a bid to boost activism and fight for
democracy in a bureaucratic local that's adrift after going years without a
contract.

The impact of CORE can be seen in other cities,
too. Teacher union militants got another recent boost in Washington, D.C.,
where reformer-turned-bureaucrat Nathan Saunders was was ousted as president of
the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) [12].

A similar dynamic is unfolding in United Teachers
Los Angeles, where a two-term reform leadership failed to halt the decline in
wages and compensation, opening the way for the current union president, Warren
Fletcher, to win office on a platform of being a more professional and effective
negotiator. But Fletcher's inability or unwillingness to stand up to a series
of attacks on the union has spurred a revived UTLA reform network to initiate
successful membership referendum on preparing for a strike [13]. A reform
challenge to Fletcher is likely in next year's union elections.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

CERTAINLY, OUSTING ineffective or conservative
leaders is an important goal of militants among teachers, as it is for other
union activists. And as the Chicago experience shows, a fighting union
leadership can make a critical difference. But for most teachers union locals,
those are long-term goals. So what do they do now?

That's where CORE's history is key. While the
caucus only came into existence a couple of years before taking office, its
roots go back decades to previous CTU reform movements [14]. More recently,
many CORE members were part of the reform administration of Deborah Lynch from
2001-2004, which was ousted after negotiating a weak contract. Others were
active in the fight against the militarization of schools as well as school
closures. Many first met in organizing around issues of violence that claimed
their students.

As CTU President Karen Lewis often points out
[15], CORE wasn't formed with the idea of taking over the union, but simply
making it more effective. The first step was understanding the enemy: hence a
study group around Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine [16]. CORE's first
big public meeting in January 2009 drew 500 people in the midst of a classic
Chicago blizzard, compelling the then-union president to show up to speak.

Long before it took office--before that was even
conceivable to most of its activists--CORE succeeded in shifting the debate in
the union on a critical issue. That meant putting the issue of racism at the
forefront of the fight against school closures and charter schools.

The success of that meeting--and the removal of
some schools from the closure list--wasn't sufficient to catapult CORE into
office 17 months later, however. It was the split in the union's old guard [17]
that opened the way for an untested group of militants to take over the
second-biggest union in the AFT. It took another two years of intensive work to
mobilize the membership for a strike--a task made easier by Rahm Emanuel's
constant insults and provocations, such as cancelling a contractual 4 percent
raise.

Certainly there's much to be learned by trade
unionists everywhere in studying CORE's activist orientation and organizational
savvy. But what makes CORE different is the politics behind the operation.
While it is far from a politically homogenous group--CORE unites everyone from
Democrats to socialists--the role of the left has been crucial. Socialists,
radicals and militants from various organizations and political currents work
together in CORE to emphasize union democracy, rank-and-file activism and
militant action. This comes not from a nostalgia from labor's better days, but
from a sober recognition of the prospects for unions in an era of a depressed economy,
a rollback of the public sector and rampant social inequality.

Just as important, CORE militants saw from the
beginning that the teachers' struggle had to be the same as that of students
and parents. Thus, there was no difference between the CTU's message to its
members during the strike and to the wider community: Chicago teachers were
defending public education, and got overwhelming support as a result.

CORE's argument can be summed up as this: Teachers
unions will have to struggle harder than they have for decades simply to hold
on to what they have--and their fight must be part of a wider working-class
movement to defend public services and a decent standard of living. If the
revival of teacher reform groups is any indication, it's a message that
teachers are ready to hear.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Published by the International Socialist
Organization.

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About Me

Norm Scott worked in the NYC school system from 1967 to 2002, spending 30 of those years teaching elementary school in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn (District 14). He retired in July 2002. He has been active in education reform and in the UFT, often as a critic of union policy, since 1970, working with a variety of groups. In 1996 he began publishing Education Notes, a newsletter for teachers attending the UFT Delegate Assembly. In 2002, he expanded the paper into a 16-page tabloid, printing up to 25,000 copies distributed to teacher mailboxes through Ed Notes supporters. Education Notes started publishing a blog in Aug. 2006. Norm also writes the School Scope education column for The Wave, the Rockaway Beach community newspaper.